Ooh thanks @Gabi_J Sounds intriguing. I went to the bookstore today and debated buying it but didn’t.
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That sounds like a great read! I will persevere and read it. Thanks for reporting back to us!
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I’m still reading Theo of Golden for my book club meeting next week. I’ve been at it for 10 days because I literally nod off every time I try to read it no matter what time of day it is. From what I’ve read, it’s THE book to read, so I hope my relationship with it changes.
I finished listening to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and loved it, despite it being gut-wrenching. It truly deserves its place on James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. Written in 1903 and published weekly as a serial in a newspaper, it was picked up and published by Doubleday as a novel in 1905. I don’t know if I could have contained myself waiting for each weekly installment. Jack London, writing in the same era, compared it to the most famous American novel up to that point calling it, “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery”. For me, it ranks with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Grapes of Wrath, and To Kill a Mockingbird as great American literature that should be read by all citizens. In addition, the parallels of the “Railroad Trust” and the “Beef Trust” of the late 1800s and early 1900s to the conglomerates and tech giants of today are uncanny. Their ties to the federal government and control of all aspects of American life are freakishly similar.
I just started listening Force of Nature by Jane Harper because I wanted something lighter 
after finishing The Jungle. I enjoyed her first book in the series, The Dry.
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@Lana_Maskus you’ve done a great job of selling The Jungle. I really want to read it now. Seems like a really long audio for a 352 pg book. Do you know which narrator you had?
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You and I definitely have similar reading tastes Anne! I loved John of John and Angel Down, and will now put There is No Place for Us and Suder in my library queue! Thanks!
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Oh that’s great @Michelle_H. I’ll be keeping an eye on what you are reading. I hope the ones you mentioned will be meaningful and entertaining as they were for me.
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@Anne_Glasgow George Guidall narrated. I’ve listened to many books read by him and have always enjoyed his narrations. 959 minutes does seem like a long audio for the book. The printed edition I compared to had 412 pages, but 959 minutes still seems long even compared to that. There wasn’t an epilogue and I don’t think there was a long prologue, but honestly can’t remember for sure. I wonder, if like many older books, its print was set in a small font.
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Another book I’ve loved this year is Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon – a hilarious dark comedy about two Sicilian guys, at the end of the Peloponnisian War, who make captive Athenian soldiers put on a production of Medea.
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Oh, and also The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson, an epic tale imagining ancient Tonga, and This Is Where The Serpent Lies by Daniyal Mueenuddin, a story of contemporary feudal Pakistan.
I’m now reading The Young Will Remember by Eve Chung. Her earlier book, Daughters of Shandong, was a 5 star read for me and I think this new one will be as well.
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Thanks @Lana_Maskus . The George Guidall is definitely the one I would go for. He’s kind of audiobook royalty.
Well, @Michelle_H we aren’t hitting it out of the park this time. I read (or tried) all three of these but none of them really worked for me. I can’t recall what it was about them. Beautiful Exploits seems to be a love it or hate it book. I just felt I didn’t understand it. I didn’t finish Wayfinder because I didn’t want to commit to a big book that I wasn’t really loving. Chances are I might have liked it had I kept on going. I also didn’t finish This is Where the Serpent Lives. I think I had already read a couple of books set in or about Pakistan and I didn’t want to take on another.
I really appreciate you sharing these titles and I will continue to watch for new ones from you. At least we seem to head in the same directions pretty often even if I haven’t always prevailed. Sometimes it’s just that I want to read something else more.
@Michelle_H, thanks for reminding me about Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. That one was on my list for a long time, but somehow dropped off it. I don’t know when I’ll get around to it, but at least it’s now written down somewhere.
I’m with you on Beautiful Exploits. Just couldn’t get into it.
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@Anne_Glasgow & @Lana_Maskus, The Jungle sounded so long when you listed it as 959 minutes, LOL. That’s just under 16 hours, which doesn’t sound as bad to me. Still, I agree that sounds like a long read for a 450-ish page book. The Grover Gardner version is just over 13 hours (and he’s no slouch, either).
After some of the heavier books I’ve been reading & listening to lately, I needed a break, so I’m now listening to the new full-cast version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I read the books when they came out (nearly 30 years ago now, how can that be?), listened to at least the first few in audiobook format (read by the incomparable Jim Dale), and I saw the first movie multiple times. I’m pleased at how much I’m enjoying the audiobook.
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I read The Young Will Remember as an ARC. It was a very good book from my perspective.
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Hi, All,
New community member and first-time poster here. I finished Lamb’s beautiful and emotionally charged The River is Waiting a few days ago and probably should’ve given myself more time to sit inside that one before starting another. But didn’t. Choi’s Flashlight is another kind of read entirely, and, though I don’t like to DNF anything, I’m not sure I can keep going on it. Beautifully crafted sentences, surely. The characters’ emotional flatness is entirely appropriate for the trauma each has experienced. Unfortunately, I just don’t think this one is for me at this time.
Also reading Fish Backus’ Tomboy Bride: One Woman’s Personal Account of Life in the Mining Camps of the West for my IRL book group. Perfect for our small Colorado mountain town group. The subtitle says it all. I’m enjoying the change from our usual contemporary or historical fiction.
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Welcome, @Laurie_S! Happy to have you here. I’d never heard of Tomboy Bride and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about it.
Tomboy Bride sounds so good. Many years ago I read Cripple Creek Days by Mabel Barbee Lee and loved it. It was a memoir of her childhood in Cripple Creek during the Colorado gold rush. Fortunately we visited when the town still retained its frontier flavor before the casinos moved in. I look forward to finding Tomboy Bride and reading it.
Hi, Laurie_S1! Thank you for your reviews!
I’ve been hesitant (although tempted!) to pick up Flashlight because I tried and couldn’t get into Trust Exercise. (I keep thinking I’ll try it again, but there are so many other books that are on my wish list first.)